Prague, Aug 1 (CTK) – Hackers affiliated with the Anonymous group attacked websites of firms owned by Czech Finance Minister Andrej Babis (ANO) yesterday in protest against the electronic registration of sales and the law on gambling that empowers the state to block websites, the Lupa.cz server writes.
“If the registration of sales and the law on Internet censorship are not immediately abolished, the attacks will continue,” Lupa.cz quotes the hackers as saying.
President Milos Zeman signed the law on gambling in early June.
According to CTK, the websites of the Agrofert Holding and the Penam bakeries, for example, were temporarily unavailable this evening.
Agrofert spokesman Karel Hanzelka confirmed to CTK the hacking attack of the websites of the Agrofert Holding and its subsidiary Wotan Forest. He said it was a so-called distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
Hanzelka said the security of the websites of the Agrofert Holding and its subsidiaries was good, but DDoS attacks could hardly be prevented. He said the hackers did not affect the Agrofert’s operation.
The hackers plan to attack further Babis’s firms, namely Cepro, Uniles, PREOL and Wotan Forest, and to send spam to e-mail boxes of employees of the Agrofert group, Lupa.cz writes.
The group says the new law gives the Finance Ministry a nearly unlimited power to censor the Internet. It has encouraged other Internet users to join the attack.
Babis said only websites with banned gambling would be blocked.
In late May, the Anonymous group attacked the Senate website in protest against the law on gambling. Czech media reported that the hackers also attacked the websites of the police, the Interior Ministry and the ruling Social Democratic Party (CSSD) then.
The Pirates and the right-wing opposition Civic Democrats (ODS) have expressed concern about possible Internet censorship.
The electronic registration of sales will take effect as of December. The government said it would lower tax evasion and introduce equal conditions for all entrepreneurs. The right-wing opposition claims that the new system will liquidate many self-employed people and small businesses.
kva/dr
